Enhanced Parent Portal

Note: EPP currently does not support PowerTeacher Pro based sections. As a result the scores page page fragments may need to be removed to show assignments correctly.

Districts not utilizing the new pages added via EPP should evaluate if the stock PowerSchool SIS features are sufficient. Starting with PowerSchool 9.2 the core application provides controls to disable functionality which is also honored by the Mobile App. These settings can be found under Start Page > School Setup > Parent/Student Access.

Version 5 released! This update includes 3 major improvements:
1. Localization of all the new pages. Future updates should include other language packs as well.
2. Separation of the Parent Demographic Change files into its own plugin. This will allow you to make modifications to that page without future EPP core updates overwriting your changes
3. Database Extension table created for the demographic modify fields included.

Please install as a plugin even if you plan on using custom/web_root for your files. This will allow the localization tags and db extension to install. You may still install the web_root files within the zip to your custom/web_root if that method of customization is desired.

IMPORTANT - PowerSchool no longer allows students to edit their own student record. Because of this 1x Class Registration ONLY works when logged in as a Guardian. Students will have full Class Registration ability if 1x is enabled. I am unsure of what version this happened in, just fyi.

This is a new Parent Portal with more options for student screens.

Allows a school or district to show or hide icons on the public portal. The solution now cleans up the automatic e-mail page options when those options are hidden from normal view and displays a message when the grade & attendance page is hidden. Incorporates Roger Sprik's customization that allows a student to submit course requests just one time.

Updated guardian_header and guardian_header_yui files to include version information. New clickable link will be added to the bottom of the page

Updated all guardian files to add version information

V 3.3.1 (4/12/2012)

Updated redirect code on pages to handle if parent is denied access but student is allowed access

Fixed comment/section description wrapping issue

Class Request page now shows the next_schools name instead of the current schools name

Added a full year list schedule to the bottom of the My Schedule screen

V 3.3.2 (7/30/2012)

Updated district\home.html to include 7.2 data validation

Updated wildcards to include 7.2 code

Added Teachers Comments page back in to prevent students from bypassing the wildcard security

V 4.0 (8/27/2017) BETA

Updated pages to be compatible with 8.0+

This download is currently not in plugin form!

Existing users should remove existing customized versions of /admin/district/home.home and /admin/schoolsetup/home.html. This version adds links using page fragments

V 4.0 (8/28/2014)

Plugin Version

Uses page fragments on all Pearson pages rather than customizing directly

Added page fragments in the /admin/schoolsetup/portals.html page so you can add new on/off switches without customizing the customization. This allows you to take future versions without redoing your customization(s)

Replaced /admin/district/home.html and /admin/schoolsetup/home.html with page fragments. If you have older versions you can now remove these custom pages.

/admin/students/more2.html now has page fragment to insert link

Replaced /admin/students/schedulesetup.html with page fragment. Please remove custom page if it exists from previous version of EPP

Replaced /wildcards/guardian_header.txt and /wildcards/guardian_header_yui.txt with page fragments. Please remove custom page if it exists from previous version of EPP.

Replaced customized versions of standard PowerSchool pages in guardian portal with page fragments. Please remove custom page if it exists from previous version of EPP.

/guardian/autosemailsetup.html

/guardian/home.html

/guardian/requests.html

/guardian/requestform.html

/guardian/schoolinformation.html

/guardian/scores.html

/guardian/teachercomments.html

/guardian/termgrades.html

V 4.0.2 (10/21/2014)

Fix for the scores page issue in some setups

Update page fragments to do different things when 7.x vs 8.x to account for the change from tables to lists

V 4.0.4 (02/12/2015)

Fix for the admin student menu issue that caused the link to show up multiple times

Add in link that will show in the upper left side of the admin home menu if there are any updates from the parent portal to be acted on. The link will go away once all have been completed.

V 4.0.5 (03/04/2015)

Fix for menu items not showing when Account Preferences is not an option for the user

Fix for request form. Previously would auto redirect if the checkbox value was True instead of 1. Now checks for either 1 or True.

V 5.0.0 (07/27/2015)

Localization tags added to all pages so that schools can localize any EPP page as needed. Future updates should include more language translations as they are being worked on right now. This modification was sponsored by Orleans Public Schools.

Fix for 8.3 - My Schedule page. Will not use built in schedule page if 8.3 or later and the EPP schedule page if the version is earlier than 8.3

Move demographics modify page into it's own plugin. This will allow you to update that section without future updates of EPP overwriting your changes

Migrate demographic update custom fields to a new database extension. All pages were updated to use the DB Extension. This should improve performance.

V 5.0.2 (08/20/2015)

Added DB Extension for 1 field in the schedule setup page

Update the schedulesetup fragment to use the new db extension field

New plugin for demo modify to fix the missing options in the portals menu and to change the fragment on the home page to use the DB Extension to speed it up

V 5.0.3 (09/11/2015) *Demo update only

Fixed the localization tag in html pages. Localization code existed, the tag was incorrect (thanks to cboyle for pointing it out)

Remove /admin/javascript/parentdemo.js

Update /admin/students/parentdemochange.html to have javascript inside. Update fields and buttons to use cleaner methods. Previously had not updated how the page works since v3. (thanks to vinit for pointing out how old the code was)

Update /admin/students/studentpages/parentdemochange.html to properly include the frn (thanks to cboyle for pointing it out)

V 5.0.4 (09/29/2015) *Demo update only

Fixed the approve buttons on the admin side

Added custom insertion points in /admin/students/parentdemochange.html and /guardian/parentdemographics.html. Insertion point is called pdsdemochange.footer. Thanks to those at PSUG-MI 2015 for the suggestion.

I just installed EPP. All the extra screens are great however the Demo Update icon is not showing on the Parent screen. I have checked the school and district Parent Portal Settings to make sure they are unchecked. I can see the icon and page in the custom folders. I have tried it with SSO enabled and without. Is there a setting somewhere that I have missed?
Thank you so much for your time.

Brian,
Thanks for your work on this. However, I'm not finding where to setup this up for students. When logged in as a parent, they cannot see Demo Update even though the option is unchecked. All I find in the documentation (page 15) - "*Additional controls are available for the Demographics update page. One can set an entire school to have access to that page, but then has the ability to remove that page from individual students at the school. This level of control can be used with separated families or in other unique situations that may warrant it."

Hi, we have the same problem here. Demo Update icon not being displayed in EPP. I am seeing there are some reports of the same problem but not a clear answer yet. I reviewed the current documentation available and I found exactly the same paragraph John Swaney mentioned above. Any guidance from anybody in PowerData Solutions would be much appreciated.

Hi, I just installed EPP and am having the same issue of the demo update icon not showing up. I am not sure what to do. This is the one feature that I really want. On the Custom Student Screens page I do not see any new screens, just the ones I already had. PowerSchool hosts my server and I'm not running database extensions yet. Any help would be appreciated. I do happen to notice that the Demographic Change icon is not shown on the screen shots on pages 1, 16, and 17 of the documentation either.

An update to my previous post: I reset the server and now the Parent Demographic Change custom screen shows up on the admin side and I can get the Demographic Change icon to show up for a student on the parent side by marking the "If this box is checked, any guardian can see demographics data..." checkbox. After doing this, I see the new custom field enabledemoupdate with a value of 1 in DDE for this student. I am still testing, but hope I can set the value of this field for all students using Student Field Value.

After we did an upgrade I lost all of the enhancements. When I reinstalled in enhanced parent portal files, the parent demographic does not show up in the custom screens. It appears that all of the files are there.

Thanks for the updated version 3.3! In testing this we found that the Grades Last Updated On field only gets updated when the teacher records a traditional score in the assignment column. Our teachers ONLY enter a standards score in the standards tray and that doesn't get reflected in the parent portal under Grades Last Updated. Page = scores.html. It looks like it's using a field ~(LastGradeUpdate) with some logic. Is this something that is easily fixed? Thanks!

When you print the Quick Lookup/Scores (scores.html) page using the PS print icon, any section description that was copied into the gradebook appears as a single line and does not get wrapped appropriately. This also happens on the stock Quick Lookup/Scores page (scores.html). At PSU Orlando, Jason thought he might have a fix to this. Thanks.

Hi there - the documentation for EPP provides a link - www.powerdatasolutions.org/content/customization-basics. I cannot seem to find this. I was at PSU last week and took both courses - The Foundations of Customization and Introduction of Powerschool Customization, but wanted to have a look at the documentation here as well. Any suggestions? Thank you!

We just upgraded to 7.1.2 last night and found that our Class Registration screen shows the "wait while the page renders" issue. We do have an image server but I've copied over both the stock and custom scripts and images folders several times now to no avail. I've got the most recent Enhanced Parent Portal customization on...do you have any suggestions for where I can look next? Thank you!

Thought I'd put some updated information out there in case someone might be able to help...we are really stuck! When we did our upgrade, we had issues because our SIF server was left running during the upgrade. Before Pearson support discovered that was the cause of our upgrade problem, they had gone in and "truncated the ps.server_config and ps.server_instance files...I'm wondering if something with that would cause this issue?

Recently upgraded to PS 7.x.x.x Still working out a few small bugs. Can't figure out why my menu pane in Student Selection view is being displayed like my old version of PS. Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks.

Have you ever thought about going on the road? You guys are so great! Thank you for the documentation on uploading zip files, etc. I am trying to upload the EPP zip file, but the file does unzip when trying to do so. What am I missing? I am embarassed to put this out there - YIKES! Once again - thank you.

I am wondering if anyone uses the EPP for re-enrollment for the next school year? We have a custom screen that we currently use, that we want the input from the re-enrollment process from the parent portal to flow through to. Any thoughts on this from anyone? Thank you.

The demographics change page can serve as a template to do something like that. If you aren't comfortable doing it yourself let me know but in general you can follow how that page works and do what you are looking for by expanding on it.

Sorry, Jason, I did not even see this reply to my inquiry - thanks so much. I would appreciate some help to make this happen - just when you have the time. Thanks so much. I have created a custom screen - quite an easy task for sure, but have not been successful with the custom page. I am learning thanks to you guys!!

Hi Everyone - I have sent this off a few times, but am thinking that there may not be anyone who has the re-enrollment process available on their parent portal. Does anyone (Brian, Jason) know how to make this happen and/or what the scenario and/or coding might look like? Thanks.

The fields you use for demographic information may be different then the stock fields. The demo update page included in EPP is only a example and it's based on the stock fields. If you use different fields you will need to rewrite the pages to match your setup. If you would like to hire PDS Inc to do this then you can contact sales@powerdatasolutions.org